Thursday, March 22, 2012

Strawberry Gelato

I didn't really get around to making all the things I wanted to during strawberry season and now I'm in a bit of a panic, attempting to make everything I can before they're gone.

It was a bit too cold to continue my gelato escapades but what what better way to get back to it than by making some with fresh strawberries.

I looked up a lot of recipes online and they were quite different. Some called for just strawberries, sugar and cream. Some required milk and cornstarch with the fruit and sugar. So in the end I decided to adapt a recipe from a gelato cookbook my sister bought me.

Adapted from "Making Artisan Gelato" by Torrance Kopfer

Ingredients

400g (about 2 cups) halved strawberries

4 tbs sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

2/3 cup sugar

3 egg yolks

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup cream

In a large bowl, add the strawberries and sprinkle 4 tablespoons of sugar. Mix gently, cover and place in the refrigerator for about 5 hours.

Remove from the refrigerator and puree the strawberries in a blender or food processor. Return to the bowl, stir in the lemon juice, cover and refrigerate until needed.

Fill a large mixing bowl with ice and add some water to make an ice bath. Place a slightly smaller bowl in the ice bath and place a strainer over this bowl.

In a saucepan, add the milk and cream and cook on very low heat.

In a separate mixing bowl, add the egg yolks and 3 tablespoons of sugar from the 2/3 cup. Add the remaining sugar to the saucepan with the milk and cream.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar with an electric mixer until the mixture is pale yellow and thick.

Heat the milk and cream until very warm but not boiling. When bubbles start to form at the edge, remove from the heat.

Slowly whisk in the hot milk mixture, a little at a time, into the egg yolk mixture. Add about half the milk mixture in this way. Then whisk in the egg yolk mixture back into the saucepan and return to the stove.

Cook on very low heat, stirring continuously with a whisk or wooden spoon, for about 7 to 10 minutes until the custard thickens. Keep stirring, do not leave the custard alone.

Strain the custard into the bowl over the ice bath. Mix in the strawberry puree and beat with a hand blender or electric mixer for about 2 to 3 minutes.

Leave the mixture over the ice bath to cool completely, stirring occasionally.

Then cover the mixture and allow to chill in the refrigerator, preferably overnight, about 8 hours.

Freeze the the mixture in your ice-cream maker, according to instructions.

If you don't have an ice-cream maker, transfer the mixture to a large rectangular container. Place in the freezer and after every 30 minutes, remove from freezer and beat with an electric mixer. Continue this process for about 3 hours or until the ice-cream becomes too firm to mix. Here are some instructions from David Lebovitz about how to make ice-cream by hand.

Allow the ice-cream to firm up in the freezer. To serve, remove the ice-cream from the freezer and allow to soften for 5 to 10 minutes. Scoop out using an ice-cream scoop dipped in hot water.